One in ten French people does not know what the Holocaust is

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One in ten French say they have never heard of the genocide of Jews during the Second World War, according to an Ifop survey * unveiled by franceinfo Thursday, a figure that amounts to two out of ten for respondents 18 to 34 years.

10% of French people have never heard of the Holocaust.To the question “Have you heard about the genocide of the Jews?”, 10% of the respondents answered “no”, a proportion hardly inferior to that of the same question concerning the genocide of Armenians (15%) and Tutsis in Rwanda (21%).

A blurred historical period.In addition, only 79% of the French surveyed know that the Holocaust took place during the Second World War.9% of them place it during the interwar period, 6% during the First World War, 4% at the beginning of the 20th century and 2% think it took place during the Cold War.Among 18-35 year olds, 30% of respondents are unaware of the period during which this genocide took place.

While this historical event is taught three times during schooling (in CM2, third and first), “this raises the question of what remains of the teaching, what the young people retain or want to retain “, acknowledges Iannis Roder, Director of the Education Observatory of the Jean-Jaurès Foundation, interviewed by Franceinfo.

* Survey carried out on December 12 and 13, 2018 among a sample of 1,014 people, representative of the French population aged 18 and over, according to the quota method, in partnership with the interministerial delegation to fight against racism, l anti-Semitism and anti-LGBT hate (Dilcrah), the European Foundation for Progressive Studies (Feps) and AJC Paris, the French branch of the American Jewish Committee.